ROCKFORD — Tax bills will soon be mailed to Winnebago County property owners, and it won’t be a happy delivery for most.

About 64 percent of property owners will see a higher tax bill than they did a year ago, according to a calculation by Supervisor of Assessments Tom Walsh. About 34 percent will pay less, largely because property values declined for the fourth straight year and deductions for seniors increased. The remaining 2 percent are unchanged.

About 78 percent of tax bills either declined, stayed the same or were within $100 of last year’s level, according to Walsh.

The story of this year’s tax bills is a familiar one. Declining property values, coupled with requests for more tax dollars by most government bodies, has led to higher tax rates. When taxing bodies ask for more after property values drop, rates rise so that tax agencies can get the amount they want.

In 2013, the value of all property in Winnebago County dropped 7.3 percent, to $3.83 billion, and 58 of 86 taxing bodies requested more money.

The vast majority of Rockford residents will pay $14 for every $100 in equalized assessed value this year. The Rockford rate is 8.5 percent higher than last year and 36 percent higher than 2007, when five years of record rises in home prices had helped reduce the rate to $10.28 per $100.

The rate has risen each year since 2007, but that doesn’t always equate to higher bills. Last year, the Rockford tax rate increased about 6 percent, but about 67 percent of people had lower bills than the previous year. Much of that can be credited to dropping property values and a decision by the Rockford School District, which makes up the majority of a city taxpayer’s bill, to cut its property tax levy by nearly $16 million that year.

Walsh said about 22,000 people — roughly 18 percent of total tax bills — received the senior homestead exemption this year, a discount that increased from $4,000 to $5,000 for those 65 and older.

“That had the effect of increasing the rate a little bit,” Walsh said. “That’s $22 million less assessed value” after exemptions.

There were 12,439 seniors who applied for an assessment freeze, which allows income-eligible seniors to prevent an increase in their home’s value and, thus, their property tax bill. However, just 4,961 were able to take advantage of the freeze because, for most, property values fell below the level at which their homes were initially frozen, Walsh said.

Farmland was a major exception to dropping property values, leading to higher property taxes. The value of Winnebago County farmland increased from $26.9 to $29.6 million, but that’s just a sliver of the total value of all property. The state calculates farmland values per acre based on five-year averages of production costs, crop prices and interest rates.

Page 2 of 2 - “Farmland assessments have being going up 10 percent each year for the past several years because of relatively high crop prices and relatively low mortgage-interest rates,” Walsh said.